Knight in a red hoodie
by alevel3mage
Summary: Marco, unhappy with the events of last night, resolves to go to mewni after star, but doesn't exactly land on her doorstep, now he must fight his way to her side. Fortunately he meets some new allies that teach him a powerful form of magic that might give him the edge he needs to defeat toffee once and for all. (Set after StarCrushed)(Starco is life)
1. Chapter 1

Knight in a red hoodie.

Chapter 1 – Goodbye earth, Hello Mewni

Marco opened his eyes, today was the first day of summer vacation, it was a quiet morning, the trees outside quietly rustled in the wind, his room was just the same as it had always been. There was a Mackie hand poster on his wall, his laptop sat on his desk closed, and toys from his childhood lined the shelves on his wall. All exactly how it always had been, he rolled over, on his bedside table was a pair of scissors, Marco's dimensional scissors, he earned them when he was kidnapped by Hekapoo, and dragged into a 16 year long manhuntm. It was a gruelling task but he was glad he went through it, for now he was ready for anything life could throw at him. Whilst he was in there he learned to sword fight, he learned how to read, speak and write Mewnian, the native language of his best friend in the whole world. He looked at his door the boring wood stared back at him. He wanted it to burst open, shards of wood scattered all over the floor, as his best friend ran in to drag him off for another wild adventure in a different dimension, but it didn't, and it never would again. Star was gone and she wasn't coming back, he turned over in his bed again, recalling last night.

"I do have a crush on you." Star blurted out, everyone at the party gasped in awe at the revelation, Starfan13 even fainted, Ponyhead announced that she had called it. "I didn't want to admit it, because I know you don't feel the same way, and I though if I just pretended the feelings weren't there, they'd go away, but they haven't. I have to leave Earth, probably forever, and I couldn't go without telling you the truth." She turned and ran up the stairs bidding everyone goodbye, tears streaming down her face. Marco ran after her, what else could he do, his best friend was crying and it was all his fault. When he got to her room he opened the door as the magic began fading from it, her room transformed back into the regular old spare bedroom they had had a year ago. Marco sat there in silence, Jackie came up to check on him but his parents sent her away to let him sort it out himself, he needed time alone to deal with what just happened. They ended the party and sent everyone home. Marco went to bed as soon as everyone was out of the house.

Marco got up in his bed finally, his back was sore, he probably shouldn't have slept the way he did. But that didn't bother him right now, it's not like he has anywhere to be. He checked the time, 11:02am, he had slept in, but last night had been quite exhausting for him, he was allowed this much. He picked up his phone, a text from Jackie, "Hey, I hope you are feeling ok, give me a call if you need to talk, alright?" She had clearly spent quite a while writing that text, normally she would have skipped at least a few letters here and there, but clearly this time she wanted to make sure that she send the right words. He was the same, he knew he needed to respond to her as well, but he wasn't sure what to even say to her. His best friend just confessed her feelings for him right in front of his girlfriend, and then he ran of after her. Marco looked at the scissors again, remembering how his life changed in the past year, a year ago he was the safe kid. Known for never taking any risks in his life, but now he was Marco Diaz, dimensional travelling karate red-belt sidekick to the magical princess Star Butterfly. He had fought monsters he had no idea even existed, he had been to worlds he never would have dreamed of. And most unlikely of them all, now he was dating Jackie-Lynn Thomas, his unrequited crush since kindergarten. He had changed so much and it was all thanks to Star. He picked up his scissors, thinking about Star, just about her, about how she would probably be crying in her room right now after leaving earth. He clutched them tightly in his fist. "I've made up my mind" He said as he got up out of his bed.

His backpack was placed down on his bed. A spare hoodie, 3 t-shirts, 3 pairs of jeans, a torch, and a bunch of snacks were placed into the bag filling it to it's brim. He zipped it up then he grabbed his fanny pack and placed that next to the bag, he was almost ready. He wrote a note to his parents, then picked up his phone and wrote a text to Jackie. "I'm sorry, but I'm going after Star..." he started writing the text but couldn't find the words to finish it. He wanted to tell her not to wait for him, and that she still mattered to him but that Star also mattered a lot and he didn't want to see her crying. But he couldn't find the words and in the end he decided not to send it after all, It would just make Jackie feel bad if he sent a text without thinking it through properly and he didn't want to waste anymore time. Every second he wasted was a second that Star spent crying alone in her room. He grabbed his bag and the scissors and opened a portal. He took a deep breath of earth air, possibly the last of it he would ever breath. "You decided this on your own Marco, can't be the safe kid forever." He said aloud and stepped through the portal.

Meanwhile in the Butterfly castle.

"Star, are you alright in there?" there was a knock on her door, Star was awake, or rather she hadn't slept. She was too worried, she had just told Marco how she felt about him then ran away. She felt awful, and now she was stuck in Mewni, all because Toffee had returned.

"I'm coming in star" A voice at the door said as the handle pressed down, her mother Moon Butterfly walked in, "Star I know it's a bad time, but this is important." She sat down on the bed next to her daughter. "Me and your father did some talking just now and we decided that we need to build a Tramorfidian wall to stop dimensional travel to and from earth so that Toffee can't attack your friends to get to you again. But we don't have anyone with enough power to do it, we have the resources but not the magic, so we would like to use the wand to power it." She said. Star looked terrified, now she was going to lose her magic as well. She was so angry at that bastard lizard she wanted to remove all of toffee's fingers one by one then feed them to him. "If we don't do it then toffee will go after Marco again. Won't he?" Star said holding back tears.

"Most likely." Moon responded holding her daughter.

"Alright then." Star handed the wand to her mother. "I don't think I have the heart to do it myself."

"Don't worry Star, we will get Toffee, and then you can go back to earth. If you still want to." Moon responded.

"Thanks mom." Star replied finally falling asleep.

Moon exited the room, her hands clutching the wand as it transformed.

Somewhere in the Mewni dimension.

Marco stepped out into a corn field. It was terrifying, he was leaving his home and he had no idea when he would be back, If he ever went back. But he was certain in his convictions, he needed to bring star back with him, or die trying. "I thought I was getting pretty good with these but I couldn't quite get Stars location. Ah there must be one of those trimorfilidelphian crystals at the castle, I know I would want to stop people from using scissors to get into the royal family's house." Marco looked around, he was in a field and it was a big one, there seemed to be kilometres of corn in every direction. Marco spotted a carriage in the distance. "Guess I'll aim for that." Marco said as he cut through the air with his scissors, he stepped through the portal and was just a bit ahead of the carriage in the road. However when he stepped out of the portal he heard a sound, next to him, it couldn't be the carriage it was too far away, he turned around and spotted some highway men hiding in the bushes next to him. He quickly got into a fighting stance and kicked one of them in the face, knocking him out instantly. This took them all by surprise and the remaining three jumped Marco. However the boy was well trained in karate and had fought an army of monsters before, he was more than ready for a few highwaymen. He managed to down one of them with a solid chop to the head then the other two drew swords. Marco did not have a sword, but he knew how to use one, He began beating on one of them, moving as he fought so as to keep out of range of the other one. After downing the third he retrieved the sword from his unconscious body and took on the last one standing. His training in Hekapoo's dimension seemed to have translated over well, he didn't have the same stature as before and he certainly didn't have the abs but he was still a force to be reckoned with. A few quick strikes showed Marco that this was clearly an amateur swordsman he was fighting and he ended up defeating them with little problem.

As Marco stepped back the carriage had reached him. The driver stopped and the passenger stepped out. It was a man in noble clothing, Marco had seen Mewman nobles before, he always thought they looked silly since the suits looked quite bizarre compared to suits on earth. Closer to something a character would wear in a comedy skit than actual clothes. The man walked up to Marco and noted the unconscious highwaymen around him.

"I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude..." The man said leading for Marco to give him his name.

"It's no problem" Marco said taking the sheath from one of the highwaymen and putting his new sword in it. These guys stole from other people, at least this way they would be down a sword.

"Oh no I Insist, My name is George Lionheart, please at least let me give you a lift." The noble said as he got back into the carriage. "Come on. Hop in." He said holding the door open. Marco got into the carriage with him and took a seat across from George.

"Can I ask your name?" George asked as the carriage took off again, down the dirt path.

"Marco. Marco Diaz." Marco responded looking around the carriage, it was a fancy piece of work he was sure of that, he had seen the carriage that Star often got taken to and from Mewni in, as her parents had no idea they had scissors at the time, and recognised some of the same patterns and materials.

"That's not a very common name, but not one that isn't muttered often in the circles I'm in." George said leaning in. " 'Who is the boy in the earthly attire?' and such.." He finished.

"I had been trying to blank that day from my memory." Marco responded with looking uncomfortable.

"Given that you are here in Mewni. I'm guessing you will be on your way to visit the Princess?" George asked.

"Well, yeah that was the plan, but not quite yet." Marco responded.

"Really, word is already travelling that the princess is back on Mewni, without her beloved, someone may come and snatch her away whilst you are away." George pressed the issue.

"It's just that I don't know what to say to her, she just told me she loved me then left. No reason why she had to leave either. She just ran away." Marco said relaxing back on the seat.

"Well I know what it might be." George said with a stern look. "Last night the magic high commission lead an assault on where Ludo was last seen, this is top secret but I have a source of my own that informed me, They were defeated, horrifically. Whilst the queen made it out safe, most of them had their magic drained severely. They are all in the castle resting now. Well the survivors at least."

"What?, they were defeated? By Ludo?" Marco asked in disbelief, surely Ludo, the same ludo that Star and Marco had beaten on for over a year was not able to defeat the high commission, even If he had the wand.

"My source tells me that it wasn't Ludo, but Toffee." George said, staring daggers at Marco.

"No, no no no, Toffee is dead, I saw him blow up." Marco said.

"Well my source has never been wrong about anything before." George said.

"My lord we have arrived at your home." The driver said.

"Perfect, Marco, you should join us for lunch. My source is staying here and you probably have some questions for him." George said stepping out of the carriage. Marco followed shortly afterwards.

George's estate was quite large, the central courtyard they arrived in was flanked on both sides by wings of the building, combined with the section in front of them the house formed a squared 'U' shape. George invited Marco in, and Marco saw no reason to decline. The interior was very lavishly furnished, deep red carpets with gold trim covered the floor and stairs. The walls were a dark wood at the bottom which changed to light red plaster about halfway up the wall. There was a central staircase that led up to the second floor across the foyer from the entrance. There was a butler present as the master of the house entered with his guest.

"Jeeves, inform the cook that there will be another dining with us today." George said as he entered.

"Very good sir." The butler responded.

"Follow me Marco, this way to the dining room." George said leading Marco through the hallway into a double door. The room they entered had a large table with 16 seats at it seven on either side with a single seat at the head and foot of the table, there was a small green man floating above the table in the centre digging into a packet of sweets. He reminded Marco of Glossaryck but didn't have the gem in his head.

"Leoryk, good to see you again." George said as he walked to take a seat across from him.

"And it is good to see you as well, my lord." The small man said.

"This is..." George started gesturing to Marco and inviting him to sit down.

"AHH, Mr Butterfly, It is good to finally meet you." Leoryk said greeting Marco. Then taking a gummy worm from the bag.

"Erm, I'm not Mr Butterfly, my name is Diaz. Marco Diaz" Marco corrected him.

"Sorry, future sight, messes with your perception of time sometimes, That greeting will be correct soon enough though." Leoryk said dismissing Marco's complaint then chewing on the worm.

"I'm sorry but who are you?" Marco asked taking a seat. "You look a lot like Glossaryck."

"Well me and him certainly are similar, where he was born from the Butterfly family book of spells. I was born from the Lionheart family book of spells." Leoryk said, eating the head off a gummy bear.

"Wait the Lionheart family has a wand too?" Marco asked in disbelief.

"What, no, heavens no. Wands whilst certainly cool are not nearly as refined enough for our magic." George said, as he did this he picked up the knife from the table and slashed through the air. Leaving a small line of sparkling energy above where he cut. "Whilst most magic users will make use of all the magic they can to cast a spell." He grabbed the magic he cut and compressed it in his fist. "We take only the purest and most powerful magic, the good creamy bit on the top." he opened his hand and a flock of birds flew out. "To cast a far more concentrated spell, without using as much magic." George finished his demonstration as the birds flew out the open window.

"So this magic is handed down in your family?" Marco asked intrigued by this new kind of magic he was seeing.

"It has been, and I will most likely be the last." George said with a sad look on his face.

"Why is that?" Marco asked, not certain if he should ask the question or not.

"Because I have no heir, nor will I. Many years ago, back when Toffee first rose to power, my lands were in his marching line, the royal family decided to wall up inside the city, a smart move, and many of my people were evacuated so as to save our soldiers for when the main battle was fought. However they arrived sooner than expected. My family was still leading the evacuation at the time and my wife, was..." George broke down in tears.

"It's ok I get the picture. You don't need to go on if you don't want to." Marco said comforting him.

"Your food sir." Jeeves said entering the room with a trolley with some food on it. Marco and George ate in silence. It felt awkward to go onto a lighter topic after making George relive that. Afterwards George offered Marco a place to stay for a while. "Until he decided to go for the Princess." Marco didn't really have anywhere else to be so he figured it would work out, at least for now.

In The butterfly castle

"Are you sure about this dear?" River Butterfly asked his wife.

"You have seen the state our daughter is in, we need to do something about it, and we don't have time to beat around the bush." Moon responded, taking out her dimensional scissors. "This may well be the last time anyone ever travels to earth."

"Better make it count then." River replied moving next to his wife.

She cut open a portal and the pair stepped through. They emerged just outside the Diaz household. They approached the door and rang the bell. They were greeted by a crying Mrs Diaz.

"What on earth is wrong Angie?" Moon asked.

"It's Marco, he is gone." She replied. "Rafael is out looking for him now, but I think he might have been kidnapped again." She cried out again.

"Let's head inside to talk this over." River said entering the house.

"Would you mind if I checked Marco's room? I may find something useful up there." Moon asked Angie. She nodded as she sat down on the sofa as river tried to comfort her.

Moon walked into Marco's room. It was clean, there was no sign of a struggle. Then she used her magic, she checked for traces of dimensional rifts in the room, there were quite a lot of clutter, clearly Star and Marco had been cutting rifts in this room a lot, but most seemed from quite a while ago. There were only two from today, one exiting from the room and one entering. However the order of the two was backwards from how a kidnapping would have looked. The exit rift came first, then the entrance, and what's more there was no corresponding exit rift for the enterance. There was a thud from the closet. A pair of eyes then appeared through the holes in the door. The door smashed open and the monster hiding within jumped to attack the queen. She retaliated throwing the monster over her head and into the wall. "Who sent you?" She demanded.

"Toffee wanted the boy again, but it seems like he has already gone after the Princess, I'm glad I waited though, now I will be able to deliver the queen's head to him instead." The monster said charging her again.


	2. Chapter 2

Queen Moon Butterfly stared down the monster that had just emerged from the darkness and attacked her, It was a septarian, the same as toffee, he held a dagger in his left hand and was wearing light leather clothing. The dagger had quite the elegant design, with a golden skull at the hilt. This wasn't a soldier for hire that Toffee picked up like Ludo's monsters, this was a loyal servant of Toffee, he had been in hiding since the first time Toffee was defeated. She was certain they were all imprisoned, however this one must have slipped away. "It really has been a long time hasn't it your majesty, you aren't nearly as fast as you once were." The monster said as it used it's dagger to destroy the light bulb, plunging the room into darkness, only the dim light of the moon from the window peered in, It was possible for Moon to make out the monster's silhouette however she needed to really focus in on it, making it hard to attack. "Don't tell me you have fallen this far, Moon the undaunted, pathetic." The monster said.

That struck a nerve, The queen's cheeks began to glow as she began casting a spell. "You are going to have to be faster than that." The monster said lunging at her throat with it's dagger primed and ready to strike.

"So are you." Moon said as she unleashed a blast of light emanating from her body, it blinded the monster and allowed her to get in a good strike at it's head. Knocking it unconscious.

At this time Star Butterfly was in her room sulking.

"No Magic, No Marco, No dimensional scissors, No leaving the castle." Star moaned. "This is not fun." She fell back onto her bed. It was the dead of night but she wasn't tired, how could she be, she hadn't gotten a chance to use any of her energy today. Bored she decided to walk around the castle. She gut up from her bed and bolted to the door,only to open it slowly and silently, the door creaked as she slipped outside and silently closed it again. She was doing this in order to burn energy so she did a little skip as she walked around the castle, she came to a room where she heard the hum of magical energy. "This is new", she said as she opened the door, inside was a machine, It looked like it was drawing power from a source that wasn't there, yet, she stepped inside and looked around, this was previously a ballroom, she had been in here for parties before she went to earth, not fun parties, but the old people kind. She heard a whisper from the machine. She couldn't quite make out what it was saying so she stepped closer to it. Placed next to the big empty space in the machine was her wand, it sat there tormenting her. "This machine, is the one that's going to stop toffee from attacking Marco?" Star said aloud in the empty room.

"Indeed it is." A voice said from the doorway. Star turned to look, and it was the goat demon looking guy Lekmet from the magic high council. Star looked In disbelief.

"I can understand you?" She yelled. She then quickly covered her mouth remembering the hour.

"Your mother seems to have been stopped from finishing the job. For whatever reason, If you want to protect the boy you will need to close off earth yourself." He finished. Looking at the machine.

Star picked up her wand, and stared at it. "You were the reason I got to meet him, and now you will be the reason I'll never see him again." Star said. "If he was going to come after me he would be here now." Star placed the wand in the machine and turned to look at the man in the doorway but he was gone. "I hope I haven't made a mistake." Star said.

Back on earth.

"Are you alright dear?" River butterfly yelled running up the stairs after he heard the noise. He saw the unconscious monster on the ground and was shocked. "Don't tell me he already got him?" River said in disbelief.

"Given what he said earlier I doubt it, Marco may already be in Mewni." Moon responded tying up the monster.

"But why wouldn't he leave a note for his parents?, they are worried sick about him?" River asked.

"I don't know, but perhaps this one found the note and hid it so that we would come to his room ourselves." Moon responded. Eyeing Marco's desk.

"That cunning brat." River said moving to stab the monster.

"We had better not do that River, he'll just come back if we do, let's get him locked up in the castle dungeon. It's safer that way." Moon said. "Ah that looks important." Moon had spotted a device on Marco's dresser. "This is a 'phone' isn't it, it's like a mobile mirror." She opened it. "Ah it's bright, lets take it to Mrs. Diaz." She took the phone downstairs as her husband lifted the monster onto his back.

"Angie? We found an assassin in Marco's room." Moon said stepping down the stairs.

"Oh god." Angie Diaz broke out into tears.

"But Marco is safe, we think." Moon finished stepping off the stairs and onto the first floor. "And I found this." She handed the phone over.

"Marco's phone? Lets see." Angie opened her son's phone and it opened on the drafted message to Jackie. "I'm sorry I'm going after Star." She read aloud. "Does that mean Marco is in Mewni?"

"Most likely. But we haven't been informed of his arrival just yet." Moon said picking up her scissors. "We will put out a search party to find him wherever he arrived and inform you when we can." She cut through the air with the scissors but there was no rift created. "What the? We didn't put up the wall yet, how could it be blocked?"

"Someone must have caught wind of what we were doing and made the wall whilst we were away." River said angrily throwing the monster to the floor.

"That means star is alone in the castle." Moon said terrified. "Along with whoever is behind this."

Lionheart mansion, Marco's room, The morning

Marco awoke in the strange room, he didn't recognise anything. The dresser was different, the walls were different, the room was larger, there were no posters, all that was there that was his was his bag, scissors and clothes.

"Rise and shine Mr Butterfly we don't have much time." There was a yelling from the dresser, the small green man from yesterday Leorik, was sat there munching on gummy worms.

"How many times do I have to tell you, I'm Marco DIAZ..." Marco said to the small magical being who was clearly not listening.

"Yes yes sure you aren't yet but we don't have long left of that." The green man said leaving the packet on the dresser and flying over, "George has neglected his duty, just like you are trying to. The universe doesn't have time to wait for you to 'feel like' going after Star Butterfly, you need to do it now. And because of that I don't even get a full day to train you." The creature put his hands down his trousers, Marco looked away in slight disgust but peeked in morbid curiosity. "Here we are." A sheet of paper emerged from Leorik's trousers, he handed it to Marco. "This is the Lionheart family spellbook.

"Spellbook, This is a pamphlet." Marco said taking the 'spellbook'

"I'll be honest our stuff isn't nearly as complicated as the Butterfly stuff, But anyway here is everything you need to know." Leorik said opening the pamphlet. "Say this tiny bit of magic here has a value of 1" Leoryk created a tiny gummy worm in the air. "not very good right, and this bit over here has a value of 8" He created another far longer worm. "when most people cast spells they will take all the magic they can get" he created a bunch more worms "and pile it all on top of each other." He put all of them in his mouth. But somehow his voice was still clear as day. "and cast the spell like that." He ate all of them but only as far as the smallest went. "This is wasteful, despite all of this much more potent magic, we still only used them as efficiently as the smallest." Then he created some more and floated them in front of him. "But if we arrange them by size, and only use the ones of the same size at the same time." he grabbed only the largest worms from the new batch and stuffed them in his mouth. "We get the full value of them." He created about 300 more gummy worms on the dresser "here now you try."

Marco was hardly out of bed, he stumbled over to the dresser and looked at the mess of worms ranging from small to the length of his forearm. "Can't I get some breakfast?" Marco moaned

"Sure you can, just after you sort all of these into ascending order of size. Marco moaned and got to work.

Butterfly castle the morning.

"The king and queen are nowhere to be found." One servant yelled as he ran through the halls of the castle informing the other staff of their current predicament. He calmed himself as he came to the door of the princess an calmly placed a knock on the door. "Your highness may I enter?" He calmly but loudly asked.

"What is it?" Star responded from her bed. She was tired since she was up late last night.

"Well you see, it's kind of like..." He was struggling. "Please don't shoot the messenger, but your parents have gone missing."

"WHAT" Star jumped from her bed.

"I'm sorry your highness but the magic high commission wants to speak with you regarding this sooner rather than later." The servant said, before legging it, he certainly didn't want to be the target of her misguided wrath that would no doubt follow. But to everyone in the kingdom's surprise, there was no misguided rage, there instead was wisdom and certainty, something that no one expected from now Crown Princess Star, she refused to ascend to queen hood, stating that her mother and father were still alive and that she would not take the throne from them until at least her 18th birthday, but still she headed the kingdom favouring Crown Princess instead of Queen or Queen regent. The crown princess part at least was her idea, the rest however was thanks to the Magic High Commission.

"Now listen Star, I know you want to just get the army and take toffee head on, but let's be smart about this, he managed to defeat every single one of us." Hekapoo pleaded the new ruler.

"Get the army to do it, pfft, I was gonna run in there blind, solo." Star replied sounding very over confident.

"That's what I was afraid of" Hekapoo responded. "We don't know where Toffee is right now, and we have no idea where your parents are either, he might have captured them somehow, if that is the case we need to be certain before we act."

"Yeah you are probably right." Star responded, she never wanted to lead the kingdom, and she wasn't doing a very good job so far, she needed to take advice from others where she could.

"I can send out a bunch of my clones to do some reconnaissance. But I'm very weak now so I'll probably be bedridden whilst they are out."

"We will organise a bed for you." Star said.

"Perfect." Hekapoo said.

"We don't know how strong Toffee's army is, if he even has one at that, but it is still better to be safe than sorry, I suggest you evacuate the kingdom to inside the city then close it off so that we can avoid any unnecessary losses." Rhombulos said

"Another good point, We'll put that in the next decree." Star said as she turned to a servant on her left, "you were writing this down right?"

"Of course your highness." He responded turning his parchment around.

"Ok now go get people to proclaim it across the land." She said as she slouched down in her chair and held her head in her hands. "I'm not cut out for this."

Lionheart family mansion the afternoon.

"My lord there has been a proclamation from the castle." The buttler announced to George Lionheart and his guest as they ate lunch, Marco had made some of his famous nachos, and gained the seal of approval from both Leorik and George, which was nice.

"Read it out for us if you don't mind, we have this orange stuff on our hands." George said.

"Very good sir, ahem, Crown Princess Star Butterfly, hereby proclaims that all peoples of the Butterfly kingdom is to be evacuated into the capital following the recent threat from The immortal monster Toffee, the evacuation will take place over the next week and at it's conclusion the capital will be closed off to all outside entry until further notice." The butler said calmly.

"This is not good." George said wiping his hands.

"What do you mean?" Marco asked doing the same.

"The princess is abandoning the outlying kingdom in favour of turtleing inside the capital, not a bad strategy, but we here are a 2 day carriage ride away and we only have enough carriages for a third of the people in the surrounding area, and if we need a day to get them all together we will still only be able to get two thirds of them to the capital safely." George said sternly as he moved to get his coat.

"What if we send a message to Star, I'm sure she will extend the deadline for arrivals." Marco said.

"It would be a bad idea for her to do that, Toffee probably already has this information and will be sending troops to infiltrate with the refugees, if we told her to keep the door open for longer then we would be putting everyone, ourselves included, in even more danger." George said, he then smacked his head on the table. "Damn it." He yelled.

"You know, the proclamation took a day to reach us, if you are going to get two thirds of the people to safety you should probably start gathering them up now." Leoryk said, still eating.

"You are right, we can think of way's around this whilst we are gathering the people." George said moving towards the door.

"I'll help." Marco said getting up from his seat.

"You will do no such thing, we have business to attend to elsewhere, Mr Butterfly." Leoryk said floating in front of him and holding up his hand to stop Marco, his fingertips still covered in cheese.

"But if I don't help more people will die." Marco yelled.

"If we don't do this then everyone will die, you, the princess, George, even poor Jeeves won't be spared Toffee's wrath." Leoryk said. "In this life we all have a duty, George knows what his is, the princess knows hers, as much as she hates it. I know mine, and you are only just finding out yours. But worry not, when all this is over, everyone will have done their part. I will make sure of that."

"Alright fine, but can we make it quick." Marco asked.

"That depends on you." Leoryk said "Pass me your scissors." Marco did so as George got suited up to leave.

"I'll join you when I can Leoryk, good luck Mr Butterfly." George said leaving the room.

"Not you too." Marco moaned, he then turned to Leoryk who was using the scissors to clip his toenails.

"Oh ready to go now?" He said as she stopped doing that and cut a portal, he then threw the scissors back to Marco, causing him to panic briefly. Leoryk went through the portal first and Marco followed shortly after.

Some cave somewhere

"Now then Mr Butterfly It's time to finish your training, I would have liked to have spent a little longer on this but we really don't have the time." Leoryk said studying each wall of the cave. "Ah here it is." He said at a seemingly random rock. He poked the stone with his toe and the whole cave shook, and the wall adjacent to the one the rock was on raised up. Revealing a larger cave with some kind of shrine built into it. Marco followed Leoryk as they went into this cave. It was massive and there was a skylight peeking in from above. There was a circle in the centre with water surrounding it with a small bridge that they crossed to get into the circle. When Marco set foot on the circle he a strange pattern lit up all over the circle, white light emanating from below then dimming slightly giving the room a nice lull of power.

"Alright then lets get down to business." Leoryk said raising both his hands up and pulling a pillar up from the centre of the circle. "If I were doing this properly I'd just tell you to break the pillar then sit and wait for you to break your hand or something trying to hit it, then tell you to try using magic. But we don't have time so just draw some magic into your hand then smack it."

"I can't use magic though." Marco said.

"Really, well then here." he coughed up a gummy worm from earlier, still in perfect shape, he whipped some of the saliva off then handed it to Marco. "Eat this and you will be able to do it."

"I'm not eating that." Marco said defiantly.

"It's your Duty." Leoryk said sounding mystical and powerful.

"Urgh fine." Marco said as he grabbed the worm and shoved it in his mouth.

"oh god I can't believe you fell for that." Leoryk said laughing.

"What?" Marco yelled spitting it out onto the floor.

"Not even Eric Lionheart the thick fell for that one" Leoryk laughed as he put a hand on Marco's shoulder, his eyes lit up.

"Oh my god I can feel it, I can feel the power welling up inside me." Marco said as the magical energy entered his body. It felt kind of tingly and then when he couldn't hold any more power it kind of just fizzled off. "Ok that was cool, now how do I do magic?" Marco asked

"Just try grabbing some." Leoryk said, picking up the gummy worm from the floor.

"You are not seriously going to eat that are you?" Marco asked feeling ready to barf from just the thought.

"Oh no, not at all" Leoryk said as it dissipated in magical fire. "This one has been on the floor."

"Alright then" Marco said, he took a deep breath and held out both his hands, in a karate stance, He grabbed forwards into the air and clenched his fist in front of him, he looked into his palm and saw a strange glowing substance, it was like having candy floss just in his hand.

"That is mana it's basically raw magical power, I'll show you how to figure out how powerful each bit of it is later, for now just try casting a spell with it, anything you like just come up with some words for a spell." Leoryk said.

"uh, ok, well, magic, punch?" Marco said as he clenched his fist around the magic and punched the pillar with about 10% the force he usually could. When it connected it destroyed the pillar as it shattered into a million individual shards.

"Not bad for a first attempt. Might want to work on the naming of your spells though, that was quite lame." Loryk said.

George entered the cave as this happened.

"Well Marco, it seems you are already doing quite well." George said as he stepped into the circle.

"Thank you sir." Marco said taking a small bow.

"Well I guess it's time for me to finish my duty, to the Lionheart bloodline, given that I'm the last it will have. But I guess it couldn't be moving to a more deserving person." George said taking a small dagger out from a holster on his belt. "We might not have a wand like the butterfly's but we do have our own magic weapon, This is the Lionblade, it will change shape based on who the wielder is, and what's more it's solar powered, so it doesn't even need a charger. I give this to you Marco Diaz, I hope you will use it to bring peace and safety to the people of Mewni and Earth alike." George said as he presented the blade to Marco.

"Aren't you glad you practised that George? You were at it all night last night. But it sounded pretty cool anyway." Leoryk said from the sidelines.

Marco took the dagger, he held it for a second in his right hand and then a blinding light came forth from it. The dagger grew in length, it reached out to about the length of Marco's arm before it began reshaping the handle and guard, the final result was a sword with a skull hilt, and fists at the end of the guard, the handle was wrapped in a red cloth and there was a red gem in the centre, which when pushed down on revealed that there was a bunny on a hamster wheel inside it, powering the sword it seemed.

"Now then Marco, last lesson, close your eyes." Leoryk said, Marco did this. "Now then do you see it?"

"See what? My eyes are closed." Marco said confused.

"Can you see the magic yet?" Leoryk asked.

"Wait." Marco said as his vision began to return to him, he saw waves of colour appear in front of him, most of it was golden but nearer the floor it faded into purple. "I can see all kinds of colours in the air, is that it?" Marco asked.

"Yep perfect, now cut it apart by colour, the golden bit is the best bit the purple stuff we don't want right now." Leoryk said. Marco held his new sword and took a swing at the air, cutting a line in the magic, he then cut again giving him a clear line of the golden magic for him to grab. "Good job, now here, pop it inside this." Leoryk said producing a water bottle, Marco did as he asked and placed a large amount of the magic inside the bottle. "Gold stuff it pretty rare so It might be handy to keep some on you in the future. Mana is scaled in terms of power by the colour of it, at the lower end you have the black stuff, you can't actually use this, it is the dregs of Mana, it doesn't actually have much power left to it but magical entities can sustain themselves on it for millennia if they have to, you won't find much of that here but on earth there is probably more of it, Then there I white Mana, it is the lowest level used for spell casting, if you remove all of the white mana from a spell then it will probably be a bit more potent unless more than half the spell was white mana. Next is the orange mana, it's twice as strong as White mana, then there is green, blue, red and purple mana, each being twice as powerful as the last, then at the top of the chain there is golden mana, the stuff in here, this is how you cast super powerful spells. But this is probably the most you will ever see in your lifetime. So hold onto that stuff for a while."

Leoryk finished explaining and sat down on the floor in the centre of the circle, a pillar arose beneath him and raised him to head height, however as this happened his body began turning to stone when the pillar reached the highest point it could he was completely solid.

"Why did that happen?" Marco asked George who seemed oddly calm about his old friend turning to stone.

"Well that's just what Leoryk does, he sleeps for 20 years every time there is a new inheritor of the sword. When he wakes up he will be at your doorstep the next day." George said from experience "So you know, good luck with that."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Reunion

The magic cave

"I just had an idea." Marco said to George as the two stood in the cave. "What if we were to gather people inside this cave, we can open a rift and just send people back so we don't need to worry about travel time either."

"That, could work, even as just a temporary solution, and there is a lot more room here than meets the eye." George said gathering in a lot of magic. "Cavius expandius" He yelled as a number of rooms were carved into the walls and the water drained creating a lower floor.

"Oh cool, how do I do that?" Marco asked.

"Well basically when you gather the magic you think really hard about what you want to do, then pick some suffixes to add to the words of what you want to do." George said scratching the back of his neck, he wasn't certain that his description would suffice.

"Ok so," Marco gathered some magic. "Cyclus Draconius Summonus." He yelled as he did the magic took the form of his dragon cycle from his time in Hekapoo's dimension, Nachos. "Cool." He finished with.

"Well since you are the one with the scissors you can be the one to go and gather people up, I'll wait here and get people settled in." George said. "Good luck."

"Alright then, guess I'll see you later then." Marco said as he rode out on the dragon cycle. "Could you get the door?" Marco asked when he got to the wall he came in on, it was closed and Marco didn't really want to get off of Nachos so soon. He rode out and set off for his first stop, where all of the people from George's land were gathering.

Two weeks later outskirts of the butterfly kingdom.

"So this place is a full three day carriage ride away from the kingdom, I doubt they got much more than children and the elderly out of here." Marco said riding his dragon cycle to yet another village that couldn't have evacuated in time. He saw smoke rising as he approached the village and what he saw was a 'battle' in progress. Well usually a battle has two sides fighting, this was closer to a slaughter, it seemed a hunting party of Toffee's army had found the village. They were pillaging it quite brutally, there were a couple of bodies on the ground. Marco doubled down on the gas and crashed into one of the monsters holding up a man by his leg looking ready to eat him, Marco's dragon cycle fell over as Marco jumped from it and landed in front the now knocked down monster, the man he was holding ran off as Marco drew his sword. He ran up to the monster and slashed at it's hide. The monster screamed in agony, he wasn't expecting a fight, this scream attracted the attention of the other monster's in the area and they began moving in on his position.

Looking on from the sidelines was one of Hekapoo's clones, when she saw Marco appear she recalled all of her clones, reuniting herself into her original body, she had to tell Star.

The castle, throne room

Star was annoyed, she had a lot to deal with right now, the city was crowded but just less than three quarters of the kingdom had managed to get inside, and this meant a lot of people were worried for family, every day there were requests from the people to send for people in remote villages, she was waiting for Hekapoo to get back before she made any move, she had no idea what was going on and her advisor's were quite clear regarding this. This changed when Hekapoo burst through the doors.

"Hey, is everything alright, you weren't due to come back for another 3 days?" Star asked the panting woman at her door.

"Marco" She took a deep breath "Diaz, in Mewni, fighting monsters on the fringes, of the kingdom." She said before falling to the floor.

"Get her back to bed and get me a pair of scissors." Star said bluntly, grabbing her sword from the side of her throne.

"Your majesty you can't." Said the head butler, Manfred, he had served under her parents and was basically the best touchstone that Star had at the moment.

"MY best friend is fighting to save MY people, and I am not going to sit around and wait for Toffee to hurt either of them." She said bluntly grabbing the scissors from one of her more 'loyal' servants.

"Manfred, you are in charge until I get back, don't set the kingdom on fire." She said opening the portal and putting her foot through it.

"Trust me milady, I would not do half as good a job of that as you can." He said.

Star gave him a thumbs up as she stepped through the portal.

Outskirts of Butterfly kingdom

Marco had gotten himself in a pickle, there were some children that he had found inside a damaged building, they were under attack from a raptor-like monster with a club, he had managed to place himself between the two but this meant that he was unable to dodge any attack, if he did the kids would get hit. He was panicking trying to figure out what to do, when all of a sudden a sword came crashing through the monster's skull.

"Who was?" Marco asked as he looked up and saw his saviour, she was standing over some of the rubble, as he looked up at her blonde hair flowing in the wind, the crown on her head not even remotely out of place despite the fierce strike she had just landed, the fact that she was wearing a dress out here, even now, she looked, majestic, beautiful, magical even. It took Marco a second to recognise her but that was helped along by her suddenly hugging him.

"Marco, you're alive, and you came to mewni." Star said crushing him in the biggest tightest hug the pair had ever shared.

"Star, my, ribcage." Marco said desperately trying to breathe.

"Oh sorry." Star said putting him down. "It's just I was so certain you would have stayed on earth and gone with Jackie and I did kind of just run out and everything."

"Star you are the coolest girl I know and besides I still owe you quite a few." Marco said taking out a notepad and adding a tally to his charts of who saves who.

"Thought I told you to stop keeping track of that." Star said playfully.

"Force of habit." Marco said, putting the notepad away. He then produced a pair of scissors from his fanny pack and opened a portal for the kids to go through. "Here you lot go through this, there is a man through there who will keep you safe, we will get everyone else from the village there soon too." Marco said to the kids as they shuffled through the portal.

"Where are you sending them?" Star asked, that must be why so many of her subjects weren't evacuated even though they could easily make the deadline.

"A cave somewhere, don't worry it's safe." Marco said. "Now then, fancy helping with the rest of the clean up here?" Marco took an offensive stance holding his sword. Looking across the ruined town, there were probably more survivors and more monster waiting in the ruins.

"You know it." Star said taking a similar stance and the two moved out together.

"You might want to change first." Marco said, looking up and down his friend, she was wearing a royal dress, whilst beautiful it isn't exactly practical for fighting.

"I don't have anything I can change into." Star said frankly, she had kind of run out here without getting anything ready before hand.

"Let's see." Marco said, as he raised his sword up and closed his eyes. He slashed at the air cutting out the general shape of a top and some trousers. He then began casting. "Clothius formacius" and the magic that he had cut out began to take the shape of a red hoodie and some jeans. They fell to the floor and Star picked them up.

"Marco, where did you learn magic?" Star asked bewildered.

"We can talk about that later, for now get changed into those, we are still in the middle of a battle field, and every second counts." Marco responded turning to face away from Star. As she got changed Marco spotted two monsters moving into a building. He told star and then he snuck around behind them and Star moved to the opposite side, once she was done changing, flanked the two, Star and Marco jumped the monsters and both went down very easily. There was a quiet whimper from within the building, there was a couple, both young adults, cowering under a table. "Don't worry We've got you." Marco said putting out his hand to help them out.

"Don't worry I'll get them back to the capital." Star said pulling out the scissors she used to get here.

"Better not." Marco said, taking out his own pair. "I've already gotten quite a few people from this town to the sanctuary, so it's better if we keep them all together, at least for now."

"Fine, but I am going to check this sanctuary out, I can't have my people hiding in some cave." Star said unhappily, Marco was going off and being a hero without anyone asking him to again, but unlike at the blood moon ball, this time she was kind of glad that he had. If not for him, a lot more people would have been killed by Toffee and his minions, she would need to properly thank him once they got the chance. Knowing him a knighthood would probably suffice, a title, getting to introduce himself as 'sir', and he was a 14 year old, why would he need massive chests of jewels? He already gets $650 per month from his line of merchandise.

Once the pair had cleared the town of monsters and gotten all of the survivors to safety, the two finally got a good chance to talk.

"Soooo." The pair said in unison, them fighting together had helped cover the awkwardness that had been stopping Marco from going and talking to Star since the pair last parted ways. But it was back now and they certainly had a lot to ask each other.

"Star, where's your wand?" Marco asked as he jumped back in belated surprise, Star's wand was like THE most important thing she had, and she had a LOT of stuff, if she didn't have that then something was wrong.

"Well right now it is supposed to be stopping Toffee from going to earth and kidnapping you again. But SOMEONE decided to come to Mewni and make it a wasted effort. I'll need to pick up my wand when I get home." Star said. "Also my parents went missing." She added

"WHAT? Then you are queen now?" Marco asked

"Not quite, my parents are still alive, I think, anyway I'm just in charge, not queen." Star said "My turn to ask you a question, why are you here, aren't your parents, your friends and Jackie worried about you?" She asked, looking rather sullen.

"Not even remotely as worried as I was about you, but I did leave them a note explaining everything. Unlike you." Marco said, Star looked annoyed, he had caught her out there, she didn't even leave a note about why she had to go, she just ran away after telling him she was in love with him, thinking about that, she began to blush uncontrollably. Even after telling him that he still came after her. She was certain it would have destroyed their friendship but he still chased her into a different dimension. "Sooo, about last time..." Marco began to ask, Star cut him off however

"Where does that portal lead?" She didn't want to confront that issue right now, the pair had just met again, and she didn't want to fall out with Marco. "This isn't the place or time for that conversation. Let's have it in the castle, with some nachos, and less fire."

"Alright, there is this cave..." Marco began to explain what happened once he came to Mewni and opened a portal for the two to go through.

Earth, Echo Creek

Jackie-Lynn Thomas was riding her skateboard down the street like she had been doing for the past few weeks of summer, she had intended to spend it with Marco but after he disappeared the day after school finished she had already left it too late to get a summer job. She had gone down this street quite often, it was the one that Marco lived on, a part of her hoped that one day she would pass by and the tower coming out of his house would be back and everything would be back to normal like before summer started. But instead there was something very different going on today, there were new neighbours moving in next to the Diaz's Jackie's curiosity got the better of her and she went up to the window and peeked inside. She spotted a middle aged couple moving around a bunch of boxes, she recognised some of their features, the man had a very bright blonde hair and the woman was a tall lady with diamonds on her cheeks, like Star had but with hearts. Then she remembered one time when she was over Star got a call from her mother, and she had those diamonds on her cheeks as well. It couldn't be, why would Star's parents be here, on Earth. Especially after Star left in such a hurry. Whilst she was still caught up in her thoughts the pair noticed her at the window.

"OH no." She said aloud as the woman walked up to the window and opened it.

"I'm sorry young lady, can I help you?" She asked politely but clearly not amused that she was spying on them.

"Sorry, it's just that I was wondering. Do you know a Star Butterfly?" Jackie asked.

"How do you know that name?" The woman asked getting apprehensive.

"Sorry, it's just you look just like her, I was friends with her at school, my name is Jackie-Lynn Thomas." Jackie responded.

"Oh yes, she has told me about you, apparently Marco had a crush on you and that is why she was terrified to tell him how she felt about him." The man said from behind.

"River." Snapped the woman. She turned back to Jackie "Well you are right, I am Star's mother, Moon Butterfly."

"Can I ask why you are here on earth, isn't there something going on back in your home dimension, that's why Star had to leave right?" Jackie asked.

"Well you see, Star was crying all night long after we took her back, so we decided to come here and fetch Marco so he could talk to her, but then after we went through the portal someone closed off travel to earth, and now we are stuck here until someone shuts it down." Moon said clearly, she had nothing to hide, even if one of Toffee's spies was around it wasn't like they didn't already know everything that they did. Every spy Toffee had on them was one that he didn't have causing trouble for Star right now.

"Oh well that's not great I guess, give me a call if you need anything, Marco's parents have my number, catch you later Mrs Butterfly." Jackie said taking off.

"She's a nice girl." River said. "I wonder why Star wrote in her diary that she 'Wanted to rip that stupid highlight out of her hair and strangle her with it'?"

"RIVER!" Moon yelled again, "Don't read Star's diary, It's rude."


End file.
